CHAPTER XXXI
LOVE
117. And now regarding love, which the apostle says is greater than
the other two--that is, faith and hope--for the more richly it dwells
in a man, the better the man in whom it dwells. For when we ask
whether someone is a good man, we are not asking what he believes, or
hopes, but what he loves. Now, beyond all doubt, he who loves aright
believes and hopes rightly. Likewise, he who does not love believes in
vain, even if what he believes is true; he hopes in vain, even if what
he hopes for is generally agreed to pertain to true happiness, unless
he believes and hopes for this: that he may through prayer obtain the
gift of love. For, although it is true that he cannot hope without
love, it may be that there is something without which, if he does not
love it, he cannot realize the object of his hopes. An example of this
would be if a man hopes for life eternal--and who is there who does
not love that?--and yet does not love righteousness, without which no
one comes to it.
Now this is the true faith of Christ which the apostle commends: faith
that works through love. And what it yet lacks in love it asks that it
may receive, it seeks that it may find, and knocks that it may be
opened unto it.245 For faith achieves what the law commands [fides
namque impetrat quod lex imperat]. And, without the gift of God--that
is, without the Holy Spirit, through whom love is shed abroad in our
hearts--the law may bid but it cannot aid [jubere lex poterit, non
juvare]. Moreover, it can make of man a transgressor, who cannot then
excuse himself by pleading ignorance. For appetite reigns where the
love of God does not.246
118. When, in the deepest shadows of ignorance, he lives according to
the flesh with no restraint of reason--this is the primal state of
man.247 Afterward, when "through the law the knowledge of sin"248
has come to man, and the Holy Spirit has not yet come to his aid--so
that even if he wishes to live according to the law, he is vanquished-
-man sins knowingly and is brought under the spell and made the slave
of sin, "for by whatever a man is vanquished, of this master he is the
slave"249 . The effect of the knowledge of the law is that sin works
in man the whole round of concupiscence, which adds to the guilt of
the first transgression. And thus it is that what was written is
fulfilled: "The law entered in, that the offense might abound."250
This is the second state of man.251
But if God regards a man with solicitude so that he then believes in
God's help in fulfilling His commands, and if a man begins to be led
by the Spirit of God, then the mightier power of love struggles
against the power of the flesh.252 And although there is still in man
a power that fights against him--his infirmity being not yet fully
healed--yet he [the righteous man] lives by faith and lives
righteously in so far as he does not yield to evil desires, conquering
them by his love of righteousness. This is the third stage of the man
of good hope.
A final peace is in store for him who continues to go forward in this
course toward perfection through steadfast piety. This will be
perfected beyond this life in the repose of the spirit, and, at the
last, in the resurrection of the body.
Of these four different stages of man, the first is before the law,
the second is under the law, the third is under grace, and the fourth
is in full and perfect peace. Thus, also, the history of God's people
has been ordered by successive temporal epochs, as it pleased God, who
"ordered all things in measure and number and weight."253 The first
period was before the law; the second under the law, which was given
through Moses; the next, under grace which was revealed through the
first Advent of the Mediator."254 This grace was not previously
absent from those to whom it was to be imparted, although, in
conformity to the temporal dispensations, it was veiled and hidden.
For none of the righteous men of antiquity could find salvation apart
from the faith of Christ. And, unless Christ had also been known to
them, he could not have been prophesied to us--sometimes openly and
sometimes obscurely--through their ministry.
119. Now, in whichever of these four "ages"--if one can call them
that--the grace of regeneration finds a man, then and there all his
past sins are forgiven him and the guilt he contracted in being born
is removed by his being reborn. And so true is it that "the Spirit
breatheth where he willeth"255 that some men have never known the
second "age" of slavery under the law, but begin to have divine aid
directly under the new commandment.
120. Yet, before a man can receive the commandment, he must, of
course, live according to the flesh. But, once he has been imbued with
the sacrament of rebirth, no harm will come to him even if he then
immediately depart this life--"Wherefore on this account Christ died
and rose again, that he might be the Lord of both the living and the
dead."'256 Nor will the kingdom of death have dominion over him for
whom He, who was "free among the dead,"257 died.
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245 Matt. 7:7.
246 Another wordplay on cupiditas and caritas.
247 An interesting resemblance here to Freud's description of the Id,
the primal core of our unconscious life.
248 Rom. 3:20.
249 II Peter 2:19.
250 Rom. 5:20.
251 Compare the psychological notion of the effect of external moral
pressures and their power to arouse guilt feelings, as in Freud's
notion of "superego."
252 Gal. 5:17.
253 Wis. 11:21 (Vulgate).
254 Cf. John 1:17.
255 John 3:8.
256 Rom. 14:9.
257 Cf. Ps. 88:5.